In the construction of complex components made of fiber/resin composite materials, various individual elements are assembled, for example by gluing. It is possible for these elements to have undergone beforehand, for this purpose, a partial prepolymerization of their resin.
Threads, strips or fabrics are also assembled, while they are still wet, that is to say impregnated with unpolymerized resin, and the whole is then polymerized.
The latter process, which favors bonds of good quality, leads, in the case of large components, for example long and/or thick components, to numerous delicate manipulations. Such manipulations are required for the positioning of a large number of long strips of rovings, the faces of which are sticky and tacky. These manipulations lead to very long working times and to high investments in machines for dispensing rovings and in draping machines (the latter producing piles of textile webs), which are generally designed for only one type of operation, but sometimes for several types, in which case they are complex and expensive universal machines.